History of CGP
The Chris Gethard Show UCB The roots of Chris Gethard Presents can be traced back to the Upright Citizen's Brigade where Chris Gethard began taking classes in 2000. It was there that The Chris Gethard Show began as a monthly live show in 2009. The show moved to public access television at Manhatten Neighborhood Network in 2011. MNN The first episode of The Chris Gethard Show on public access channel MNN aired on Wednesday, June 22, 2011 at 11pm. This became the regular time slot for the show for the next four years. The public-access run of the show consisted of hour-long episodes broadcast live and mostly proceeded without a formal structure. Gethard would take phone calls from people at home and the show was frequently "interrupted" by improvised character comedy from both guest stars and the show's writers including popular characters like Vacation Jason, Horse and Bee, The Hintmaster, and The Guy Who Likes Cream But Not Too Much Cream. The success of the show resulted in an unaired Comedy Central piolet that wasn't picked up but the show eventually found a home on cable television. Fusion & TruTV The Chris Gethard Show premiered on Fusion on May 28, 2015. The first season brought several changes to the show's format, however, the new set, increased production capacities, and bigger budget presented more opportunities for bits, more famous guests, and musical acts. On May 4, 2017, it was annoucned that the show had been picked up by truTV where it ran for 26 episodes. On August 6, 2018, Chris Gethard announced via Facebook that the show was canceled by truTV and was finished. The Special With Brett Davis When TCGS moved to cable, their timeslot at MNN was handed down to The Special Without Brett Davis. The show took the form of an ever-changing live "special" with a new format and performers, and a host portrayed by comedian Brett Davis. The show ran from February 18, 2015 until May 29, 2019. When they Special wrapped, the timeslot was handed back to Gethard for what would become CGP Chris Gethard Presents After TCGS was canceled by TruTV, Gethard got a call from MNN who were bummed about the cancelation but happy to have played a part in everything that had happened. They offered Gethard a home on MNN but his first instinct was that it would be a backwards move, and he declined. They went on to explain that they loved having New York comedy on their airwaves and they felt like it would be a shame to see it go away. Gethard felt it would be would be pretty disingenuous to try to reclaim his underground credibility but realized that he was in a pretty unique position to be able to help the people who are currently at the same place in their careers/mindsets that he was in back in 2011. The idea was pitched that Gethard might curate a running slot showing off some of the people that he thinks are doing really balls-out, cool stuff in comedy, and that’s exactly what MNN were hoping to hear. Chris Gethard Presents premiered on MNN on June 26, 2019 with "The Great Night Show" with Carmen Christopher.